The White Elephant Saloon is the perfect host and perfect sponsor its 10th year of the Texas Music Showdown… good food, good friendly service, great sound man in Ted, and all-around good people everywhere. And, after the contest this past Wednesday, there was a special surprise, short performance before Brad Hines closed out the night in his unique song style.

This year’s contest completed its third week of Round 1 Wednesday (Feb. 25) with two bands competing: The Matt Nix Band, fronted by Matt Nix, and Blood Moon Bandits, fronted by Will Hancock. The third band which had been accepted to compete had to bow out at the last minute for personal reasons. At the end of the night, the judges selected The Matt Nix Band to move into Round 2, where they will be joined by previous Round 1 winners, Josh Halverson Band and TheTwisted Pistols, plus the winner of the final Round 1 night next Wednesday, March 4.

Matt Nix and Emily Webb

Judges for the night were Brett Dillon, KHYI on-air personality and contest organizer; and singers/songwriters Deryl Dodd and Rachel Stacy.

Blood Moon Bandits opened with a saxophone player, an electric guitarist, a drummer, and Will Hancock on acoustic guitar. They opened with Hancock’s original, very folky and almost solo song, with only slight musical arrangements behind his lyrics. The judges’ favorite of their originals was one Hancock had penned about the White Elephant during a recent tornado time. He told the tale of that experience. Their one required cover song was that of Shakey Graves’ Dearly Departed.

Matt Nix Band, a 6-piece consisting of fiddle, guitars, bass, drums, and vocals by Matt and Emily Webb. Nix writes and sings of lessons in life. One of the judges’ comments, a real compliment, was that sometimes when there are six people on a stage, they don’t

Will Hancock, Blood Moon Bandits

always know what each other is doing. But with this band, it was obvious they each knew exactly what their parts were and they never stepped on each other. Their cover was of the Bob McDill-penned “Louisiana Saturday Night,” and dandily emphasized the fiddle.

The special surprise? Deryl Dodd’s musical mentor and musician, Butch Giddens, drove up from Waco to spend the evening with Dodd. They both explained that Butch and his family had taken Deryl under their musical wings before he went to Nashville. Deryl has been back from Tennessee for about 11 years now, living in the Metroplex, and he and Butch have not had many chances to get together.

Firstly, Deryl and Rachel did one song together. Then, Butch got up and, together, he and Deryl sang the Merle Haggard hit, “Working Man’s Blues.” Now, no offense intended toward anyone’s voices that night — they were all good, nay, incredible — but when Butch opened his mouth to sing, well — he showed all of them just how classic country music is done! ‘nuf said!

The final 3 bands in Round 1, to compete March 4, are The Molotov Dogs, Big Joe Walker, and Zach Seth Band. Music starts at 8 p.m., and there’s no cover charge for these Wednesdays.

The MJ Blog

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